HJR 6: Supporting the introduction and enactment of federal legislation acknowledging that the federal government is financially responsible under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act for the remediation of contaminated land subject to conveyance under the Act; urging the United States Department of the Interior to implement the six recommendations to identify and clean up the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act lands in its 1998 report to the United States Congress; and urging the President of the United States and the United States Congress to remediate and make free from pollutants lands in the state conveyed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

00 HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 6
01 Supporting the introduction and enactment of federal legislation acknowledging that the
02 federal government is financially responsible under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement
03 Act for the remediation of contaminated land subject to conveyance under the Act;
04 urging the United States Department of the Interior to implement the six
05 recommendations to identify and clean up the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
06 lands in its 1998 report to the United States Congress; and urging the President of the
07 United States and the United States Congress to remediate and make free from
08 pollutants lands in the state conveyed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
09 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA:
10WHEREAS Alaska Native land claims were settled differently in the state than in the
11 rest of the nation when, in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, instead of adopting a
12 reservation system, the federal government established Alaska Native village and regional
13 corporations and granted the corporations ownership and other rights to surface and

01 subsurface land; and
02WHEREAS Alaska Native corporations were created under the Alaska Native Claims
03 Settlement Act to manage land and resources for the benefit of Native shareholders in
04 settlement of certain aboriginal land claims; and
05WHEREAS, under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the federal government
06 conveyed to many Alaska Native corporations land that was contaminated by the federal
07 government or by activities allowed or overseen by the federal government before the
08 conveyance of the land under the Act; and
09WHEREAS, in 1995, the United States Congress acknowledged that contaminated
10 land was being conveyed to Alaska Native corporations under the Alaska Native Claims
11 Settlement Act and, in sec. 103, P.L. 104-42 (43 U.S.C. 1629f), required the United States
12 Secretary of the Interior to provide a detailed report on contaminated land before conveying
13 the land to Alaska Native corporations and organizations; and
14WHEREAS, in December 1998, the United States Department of the Interior
15 submitted a report to the United States Congress that located approximately 650 contaminated
16 sites on land conveyed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act; and
17WHEREAS, in that report, the United States Department of the Interior proposed six
18 recommendations to "fully identify contaminated sites and clean-up needs of Alaska Native
19 Claims Settlement Act lands"; and
20WHEREAS the United States Department of the Interior has not fully implemented
21 any of the six recommendations it proposed to the United States Congress; and
22WHEREAS Alaska Native corporations, as landowners, are subject to liability under
23 federal and state law for the contaminated condition of their land; and
24WHEREAS several Alaska Native corporations have incurred considerable expense
25 cleaning up contaminated sites, negotiating land exchanges, and battling with the federal and
26 state governments to clean up sites on a case-by-case basis; and
27WHEREAS, in recognition of this problem, United States Representative Don
28 Young, on the floor of the United States House of Representatives on January 4, 1995, stated,
29 "it was clearly not the intention of ANCSA to extinguish Native claims by conveying
30 contaminated property to recipients";
31BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature supports the introduction and

01 enactment of federal legislation acknowledging that the federal government is financially
02 responsible under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act for the remediation of
03 contaminated land subject to conveyance under the Act; and be it
04FURTHER RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature urges the United States
05 Department of the Interior to fully implement the six recommendations to identify and clean
06 up Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act lands in its 1998 report to the United States
07 Congress; and be it
08FURTHER RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature urges the President of the
09 United States and the United States Congress to take the actions necessary to remediate and
10 make free of contamination and environmental pollutants lands in the state conveyed under
11 the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
12COPIES of this resolution shall be sent to the Honorable Barack Obama, President of
13 the United States; the Honorable Sally Jewell, United States Secretary of the Interior; the
14 Honorable Lisa Murkowski, Chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee of the
15 U.S. Senate; the Honorable Maria Cantwell,ranking member of the Energy and Natural
16 Resources Committee of the U.S. Senate; the Honorable Rob Bishop, Chair of the Natural
17 Resources Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives; the Honorable Kevin K.
18 Washburn, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, United States Department of the Interior;
19 Neil Kornze, Director, Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of the
20 Interior; Weldon Loudermilk, Director, Alaska Region, Bureau of Indian Affairs, United
21 States Department of the Interior; Kim Elton, Director, Alaska Affairs, United States
22 Department of the Interior; and the Honorable Dan Sullivan, U.S. Senator, and the Honorable
23 Don Young, U.S. Representative, members of the Alaska delegation in Congress.